amazing story

Jim Haggerty: Miracle for a Mechanic

By Rod ThomasThe 700 Club

“I’ve been working on cars pretty much all my life,” Jim said. “I started working on cars for my friends and stuff, and more people come; I take care of their cars. I really enjoy it and helping people out.”

That hobby eventually became a career. But, one day, he found out that working under two tons of steel can be hazardous.

“I can remember getting under the car. I went to check the transmission, the oil in the transmission. I put a wrench on the thing and I pulled on the wrench, which caused the car to tilt over off the rack,” Jim said.

The car fell four feet off the rack, crushing Jim underneath. Jim’s son saw it happen, and ran to get his mother.

“He come down at the house, running, yelling, ‘Mom, call 911, a car fell on Dad,’” Nina Haggerty said. “I didn’t believe him, because they prank me sometimes, but he took off running, he didn’t laugh. So I thought, he must be telling the truth, so I called 911, and then I started to run up to the garage with the phone. When I got up there we saw him under the car.”

Jim’s wife and son used two jacks to lift the car off of him. Meanwhile, his brother Timothy, an emergency medical technician, was at home listening to his scanner.

“The call came over for a man trapped underneath a vehicle. I recognized the address and I came over here as fast as I could,” Timothy said. “He was just so purple, and that’s from not having enough oxygen. From what I learned out later, a lot of the blood had been pushed up into his head and face.”

Jim was airlifted to a nearby hospital.

“They didn’t think he was going to make it. And if he did, they thought maybe brain damage. He was purple from the chest up. He was purple and swollen,” Nina said.

He had multiple broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, a partially collapsed lung and numerous leg injuries. Jim’s head was swollen from the impact and his airway was crushed. When news reached family and friends . . .

“I began praying and I realized that this was pretty major. I really wanted to have some backup prayer support, and that I am a member of The 700 Club, I thought, first of all, I just needed to get on the phone and call,” Nina said.

The next day, Nina watched The 700 Club.

“She was speaking about a very serious accident and it doesn’t look good, but God is overseeing and there’s going to be restoration,” Nina said.

Over the next 10 days, Jim was kept sedated. But, in his brief bouts of consciousness, he knew he was not alone.

“I knew, that God was there with me,” Jim said. “I could feel the prayers; I could feel God’s peace. He gave me such peace through the whole thing.”

Jim only spent 19 days in the hospital and had one month of rehab. Doctors were amazed by his quick recovery.

“They told him they thought it was a miracle; the injuries he had, how far he made it,” Nina said.